Max Bessesen

Saxophonist and multi-woodwind player Max Bessesen is a wide-ranging composer and improviser whose music gathers jazz, folk, electronic, and global influences. A Denver native, he studied at the Oberlin Conservatory with Gary Bartz, Eddie Henderson, and Billy Hart, and won a fellowship that sent him to study traditional music in India, Ghana, and Cuba. His debut album Trouble, released on Ropeadope in 2020, featured the late cornetist Ron Miles and yielded an ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award. A sought-after sideman, he has performed in bands led by Miguel Zenon and Darcy James Argue and at venues from Dizzy's Club to the Jazz Gallery. Now based in Brooklyn, he leads his own quartet at clubs like The Django.